


Wilting Flowers

by Anonymous



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, non-au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-01 03:36:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20251525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Something wasn’t right. San had known that from the moment he had woken with a painful stitch in his stomach. The only problem was, he could not quite put his finger on what it was.-San has been on suppressants for years. That fact has never been a secret, nor a problem. Until it is.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yo! If you're reading this, hope you enjoy it :D We're starting with a short chapter, but they'll pick up in length from here on out if we can gain some momentum haha~
> 
> I put this work on anonymous bc ,,, Well its a/b/o and look I'm going to be honest, I don't want the first thing people think when they see my works to be 'oof, a/b/o work' because lsfgjldf I've made that mistake before. That being said, I'll read and reply to comments, I'm so so so thankful for all engagement this gets, and I'll absolutely do my best to do justice to this fic :D So, yeah, hope you enjoy :)

Something wasn’t right. San had known that from the moment he had woken with a painful stitch in his stomach. 

Feeling sick was nothing new. He had completed enough schedules when he was under the weather to be well versed in that. No, this was something different. It wasn’t quite a sickness, but San didn’t know how else to describe it. He just had an unexplainable, gut instinct that something had gone terribly wrong.

As he pulled himself out of bed, he massaged a hand across his stomach, kneading at the jabbing ache, and yawned as he walked into the kitchen. Seonghwa and Mingi were already sitting at the kitchen bench, silently inhaling cups of dark coffee through tired eyes. 

Seonghwa glanced at San as he entered, and his forehead creased. “Okay?” he asked, voice low and gravely for the six-in-the-morning start. 

San nodded and poured himself some coffee from the pot that was already sitting on the bench. One hand remained pressed to his belly, trying to abate the cramping. Continuing to carefully watch San, Seonghwa’s eyes narrowed further. 

Mingi seemed oblivious, still looking about half a blink away from falling asleep while he poured his second cup of coffee. 

“Where’s everyone else?” he yawned, rubbing a hand over his eyes. 

Seonghwa, still frowning, turned toward Mingi. “Still trying to get out of bed? Yeosang is showering.” 

San sipped on the coffee. He was tired, but not in a way that made him want to go back to bed. The burning in his stomach was getting worse and, apparently, caffeine wasn’t helping his case. Not that he had really expected it to. He put the coffee down and walked over to the wall to look at a calendar that they had hung there. Decorated with assorted pictures of dogs underwater–it had been Yunho’s gag gift that he had kindly donated–it was marked with all the key medical dates that they needed to remember. 

On it, there were little stickers and notes marking medication days, as well as the days that cycles were scheduled to start. In a dorm of three omegas and two alphas, it was fairly busy, but not all together unmanageable. 

San located his own sticker. A light blue one that he used to mark out when his heats were scheduled to be. He was on suppressants like they all were, so he never experienced them. But, it was useful to know when they should have occurred if he had not been on the pills. Even on suppressants, cycles tended to cause a hormonal increase that made his mood depressingly volatile. 

Seonghwa watched him. “Sure you’re okay?” he asked and pushed himself out of his chair to stand next to San. His own, orange stickers and notes were neatly printed, but not located anywhere near the squares San was looking at. 

San jabbed a finger on the date. His closest sticker, one denoting when he had to take another suppressant pill, was sitting in the box next to it. “D’you think I can take it a day early?” he asked under his breath. 

Seonghwa shrugged. “I’d wait for tomorrow… I mean, we only take them once a week, so it wouldn’t be great to mess up your own pill cycle.” 

San sighed. The cramp throbbed. 

“What’s wrong?” Mingi asked, as though suddenly noticing San was there for the first time. 

“I’ve got cramps,” San whined, pressing a few fingers onto the centre of the soreness. 

Mingi sculled the last of his coffee and stood up. He moved towards the sink and began to rinse the cup as he spoke again. “Why?” The tap shut off and he pulled the dishtowel off the oven door handle to wipe it dry, before replacing the now-clean mug in the cupboard. 

“Hell if I know,” San muttered, “I thought it might just be a cycle. I used to get really bad cramps during my heats.” But, he glanced back at the calendar, and his heat wasn’t scheduled for another three weeks. The previous one, when he flipped back through the pages, was a little over two months ago. 

That was how cycles worked. Three months between heats, six months between ruts. For the lucky betas, they weren’t put at the mercy of their own biology. Hongjoong, Yunho and Wooyoung were perfectly happy to quietly celebrate that fact when escaped the struggle of managing suppressed cycles on top of all the schedules their job required. 

“How bad is it?” Seonghwa asked. Without waiting for an answer, he pressed the back of his hand against San’s forehead. “You don’t feel warm…” 

San pulled away from the hand. “I’m fine. I’ll just take some pain medication.” At Seonghwa’s doubtful look, he added quickly, “I’m fine to do the show. It’s not even that bad.” That was a lie; it wasn’t so much the pain as it was the sense of foreboding that accompanied it. Even so, he refused to let fans down. He had to get to the show, even if that meant telling a few white lies. 

“Tell me if it gets worse.” Seonghwa turned away from the calendar. He hadn’t even attempted to stop San from coming with them. To be fair, he would have been a hypocrite if he had. Seonghwa had spent his own fair share of schedules in pain or sick in an effort not to disappoint any of their fans, or admit to his own moments of weakness. 

San nodded and walked to the bathroom just as Hongjoong and Jongho appeared from their bedrooms. Hongjoong looked significantly more alive than Jongho’s scruffy bed-head did. 

After turning the light on, San shut the door behind him and stooped to look in the bottom drawer under the sink. Each of the members had their own drawer or shelf (although, half of them were in the other bathroom), but under the sink, there was a communal basket filled with medications and various first aid equipment. 

San rummaged through it quickly, searching for the lime green box that he knew contained the strongest pain medication they had in the dorm. Hongjoong used it most often for the headaches he got, but when San stood up and opened the packet, he found that they were relatively untouched. 

Popping two pills into his palm, he glanced at them for only a second before he swallowed them dry. Before he left the room, he looked into the mirror. It was low hanging and large, so he could see his entire torso reflected back at him. 

With slow hands, he reached for the hem of his shirt and slowly pulled it up. He wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see. If San was honest, he would have been grateful if he could see something that was physical proof of his pain. He always hated that he could hurt so badly but have absolutely no physical proof of it. 

And, he was right. There was nothing on his stomach. Just pale planes of skin that sloped into the elastic waistband of his sweatpants. San poked again at his stomach. The skin gave way under the pressure, but even at the epicentre, he felt no resistance or anything that he thought was particularly strange. It was just sore.

Sighing, he dropped his shirt, put the pillbox away and found his brush and a few simple makeup products to start the process of making himself presentable. He kicked open the door as he did it, and Wooyoung stumbled into the room looking exhausted. 

Neither of them said a word for each other as they breathed life into their pallid faces with products. In fact, the entire journey to the studio where they were recording was quiet. No one liked early schedules, particularly not when they had been out late the night before at a different filming location.

But, so was the life of an idol. San kept his hand pressed against his stomach, and bitterly wished he had bought the pain relief with him so that he could re-dose himself on it as soon as possible. Next to him, Yunho and Yeosang spoke to each other quietly. As San leant his head against the window, he closed his eyes and tried to tune out the strange stirring in his stomach. 

The pills he had already taken had begun to kick in, not that they were doing much. They dulled the pain just enough for San to recognise the unease that settled in his belly alongside it. It made him ansty, like he was sitting on the edge of a cliff, waiting for someone to push him. 

San’s thoughts drifted as he tried to distract himself from the gnawing in his stomach, and they had carried at the studio before he had event recognised what was happening. 

As they traipsed into the building through the back door, Seonghwa fell into step with him. “Are you feeling any better?” 

San shrugged. “I’ll be okay. I’ll just rest this afternoon, and it’ll be fine by tomorrow.” That was his normal approach to such things, and San was sure it would be fine. He had always survived before, so he had no doubt he could do it again. 

Only, the pain got worse, and so did the feeling that there was something wrong. _Badly wrong_. And the longer it lasted, the more San began to realise that maybe there was something wrong with him. His head was beginning to ache, and when he looked around quickly, his vision blurred in an unsettling manner. 

His stomach throbbed. The pain medication, which had almost been doing something before, had faded into oblivion. Or, perhaps, it was working and it was the only thing keeping him from pain ten times worse than what he already was experiencing. 

The filming happened in a blur of pain. San did his best to plaster a smile on his face and play the part of the loud jokester that he usually assumed, but the agony was horrific. He knew that the others had noticed, too. The number of times someone touched his shoulder or thigh in, what San imagined was, reassurance was strangely high. Even the hosts seemed to be a little wary. 

The only thing San could reassure himself with was the fact that this was a pre-recorded reality show. There were no live fans who could see the way he stooped over himself between takes, and his teeth clamping down on his lips in a hopeless attempt to manage the pain.

San curled his hands into fists, digging his nails into his palms, and felt Yunho put a hand on the small of his back. “D’you want to sit down?” 

Shaking his head, San forced himself to straighten up. He only grimaced for a second, but Yunho gave him a concerned look. “It’s going to be worse if I sit,” San said, measuring his voice so his voice did not shake. He paused for a second at the glance Yunho sent. “Are there any painkillers around?” he finally asked. 

“Hongjoong always has some,” Yunho said. “I’ll get them for you.” 

San nodded and waited to Yunho to take a few steps before he inhaled shakily. He clenched his hands, refusing to let them near his stomach again. Ignoring it had to be the better policy. They had one dance segment to get through, where they would record their newest comeback song, and then they were done. All he had to do was get endure that. 

It was easier said than done. The painkillers that Yunho gave to him, unsurprisingly, did not have enough time to kick in before their next segment. San was not even sure that they would be effective at all. He stood tall, smiled even more than before and even managed to make a few off-the-nose comments through the haze of pain. 

Ignoring the pain was easier than trying to compartmentalise it. At least he felt that he was acting more naturally, and Yeosang detached himself from San’s left side where he had stood dutifully during the last segment they had taped. Each time he paused, though, the stabbing sensation came back ten times worse. 

Until, finally, the precarious balance that he had been walking tipped over. The segment was wrapped, and with nothing left to motivate him to stand tall and smile, San fell into a crouching position, clutching his stomach, as soon as they reached the dressing room.

It was like a light had been flicked off, plunging them into darkness and leaving everyone in a confused and disorganised mess. Wooyoung let out an odd squawk and rushed to San’s side, kneeling next to him and trying to get him to talk, while someone–Jongho, perhaps–disappeared to find their manager. 

San could not process any of what Wooyoung was saying to him. (Or was it Yunho? Or even Mingi?) All he could think about was that, surely, _surely,_ something had gone horribly, terribly, _catastrophically_ wrong because there was no way that this amount of pain was normal. 

His legs felt like jelly, and his head was floating somewhere far away. He wanted it to end. Whatever it took, he just wanted this horrific agony to finish. It _hurt_ more than anything he could remember. The only thing stopping him from curling up on his side and crying was that he could not bear the thought of moving. He was paralysed with the sharp needles digging into his stomach. 

There were hands touching him and voices talking to him, but San struggled to understand them. His mind was too focused on not throwing up. There was bile in this throat. He could feel it. And, the humiliation at the thought of vomiting on the floor was just enough to keep him consciously trying to swallow it back. 

It wasn’t enough, though, and San’s vision began to speckle. Black dots seeped in and out of focus as he clutched at his belly, trying desperately to relieve the pain. And, the dots grew bigger and bigger as the voices became more and more distant until they obscured it all. 

At least the pain was beginning to disappear. The blackness took over his brain, too, and San went limp in Mingi’s arms.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh!! Thank you so much for the amazing response to the first chapter -- I've been absolutely blown away and I'm so, so, so touched! Please enjoy the second chapter ♡♡♡

San didn’t remember when he woke up. He thought that he might have drifted in and out of consciousness for a few hours, but he couldn’t honestly be sure. The first time he could recall being awake, though, there was a white ceiling above him and, in the corner of his vision, a tree-like pole that held a saline bag. 

He blinked, dazed, and his sluggish brain could not quite put the puzzle pieces together to figure out quite what he was looking at. His muscles were achy, like they were on the second day after a workout where he had pushed himself a little too far. But, no, it wasn’t quite like that, because the pain was less of a satisfying ache, and more like an underlying throb. 

A finger twitched, and he was suddenly aware of the starchy blankets that covered him. They were stiff, and when he thought about it, they smelled like harsh detergent. A soft groan escaped his parched mouth and throat as he moved his arm from his side to rest on his stomach. 

As his hand lay on his belly, a sudden wave of pain rocketed through his body like a tsunami. His teeth clenched together and his eyes screwed shut. The memories came tumbling back into his mind. Eyes snapping open again against the pain, he turned his head to look around himself, and took in a window with the blind raised, a glass wall leading to a reception-like area on the other side, and Hongjoong, asleep in a chair on his left. 

San exhaled slowly. _The hospital_. There was no doubt about it. 

He took a deep breath and did his best to pull his thoughts away from the dull ache in his muscles. _How had he arrived in the hospital?_ San only remembered the blinding agony that he had felt at the filming schedule and the hours of build-up to it. After that, he had absolutely nothing to go off. His brain remained stubbornly blank as if it had been stuffed full of cotton wool. 

The longer he lay there, the harder it was to ignore the cramping. It was building up again, creeping down his legs and arms from the hotbed in his stomach. He could not bring himself to do anything but stare up at the roof. 

A nurse walked into the room at some point with a new bag of saline solution in her hands. San followed her around the room with his eyes. She did not notice until she had hung the new bag up–not yet attached to him–and began to check the few machines he was hooked up to. 

They caught each other’s glance, and to her credit, the nurse did not respond except to give him a smile. “Mr. Choi, you’re awake,” she said, voice the image of a perfect calm. “How are you feeling?” 

San opened his mouth, but his throat felt like it had been coated in shards of glass. He had noticed before, but now it was all he could think about. The nurse’s eyes narrowed a little, and she crouched a little so she was closer to San’s level. 

“Do you want some water?” she asked. 

San nodded, and the nurse gave him another, small gesture of agreement before she disappeared out of the room. 

She came back only a few minutes later with a plastic cup of water and a clipboard. A doctor was a step behind her, swishing into the room in her blue coat and a bun that looked as if it was threatening to fall apart if she moved too quickly. 

The nurse set the water on the bedside table and leant over San to press a button on the headboard of his bed. He felt the upper half of his bed beginning to reach upwards, pushing him with it. It was a weird sensation to feel himself forced into a semi-sitting position, but San didn’t have much space left in his brain left to think about it. 

The doctor passed him the cup of water once San was upright while the nurse continued to change the saline solution. San, glancing at the pole, noticed that the other bag was nearly empty, but he could not recall how full it had been last time he looked at it. 

“How’re you feeling?” The doctor pulled a chair over from next to Hongjoong and sat down in it. On her lap, she positioned the clipboard and pen before clasping her hands over it. 

San opened his mouth to answer, but thought better of it and instead raised the cup to his mouth to take a sip. The water was cool and a god-send to his parched throat. He did not realise how thirsty he had been until he had swallowed the cup and was still wanting more, but he pushed that away as he opened his mouth to speak. 

Before he could, Hongjoong jolted upright. His head darted around, frantic and lost before his gaze settled on San. There was something in his gaze that San couldn’t place, didn’t particularly want to, either. San swallowed as their eyes met, and Hongjoong’s face cracked into something between relief and sadness. _What did that mean?_ Probably nothing good.

“San,” Hongjoong said weakly, as he pushed himself to his feet and to the tail of San’s bed. The doctor glanced at him with a gentle look. “You’re…” 

The nurse, having finished changing San’s saline, brushed Hongjoong’s shoulder. “Sir, could you come with me? Perhaps we could give Mr Choi and Dr Lee a moment alone?” 

San took in Hongjoong’s uncomfortable expression. He couldn’t decide whether it was because he was being asked to leave or at being addressed as ‘sir.’ Either way, he gave San a last glance and followed the nurse out of the room with stooped shoulders. San could see him reaching for a phone as he walked (_probably the manager’s_, San thought distantly; they still didn’t have their own), before the door shut behind him and it was just him and the doctor left in the room. 

Lee gave San a small smile. “How’re you feeling?” 

It took a moment for San to answer. “It hurts,” he said after a moment and winced immediately. His voice was scratchy, as though he had not used it for weeks. There was no way he was going to be able to perform like this, and his heart dropped into his stomach. 

Scribbling something down on her notepad, Lee nodded. “I’ll have a nurse administer some more anaesthetic in a bit. You were in a lot of pain when you came in yesterday.” 

San blanched. The blood drained from his face. “Yesterday?” he repeated. _He had been here overnight?_

“Yes,” Lee said. She pursed her lips. “Do you remember what happened?” 

Shrugging and then nodding, San did his best to recount as much as he could remember. His words shook. _Yesterday_. He had been out for a full day? What was so wrong with him that he had ended up in a hospital, unconscious, and with Hongjoong napping at the end of his bed like an over-protective guard dog. 

Lee’s face was unreadable as San spoke, but she occasionally wrote something down and twiddled the pen between her fingers. “Alright, thank you, Mr Choi,” she said after San had trailed off into silence. “I need to go and update some records, and I’ll come back in around a few hours to talk some more, okay?”

San blinked at her, uncomprehending until she stood up and began to leave the room. 

“Wait,” San said. His voice cracked and San could not hide his flinch at the noise. “What’s wrong with me?” 

Lee remained impassive. “We’re not quite sure at the moment. We need to run some more tests, and there’s a few I want to get the results from before I talk with you. They’re scheduled to come through in about an hour, so I won’t be long.” 

San did not know how to respond. Words escaped him like water through his fingers. 

“In the meantime,” Lee stood in the entrance to his room, “I’ll send your friend back through. You could also turn the tele on, if you wanted.” She gestured to a corner of the room, where a TV stood that San had not seen before. 

She disappeared before San could even open his mouth, and the same nurse as before walked in again with another, smaller bag of liquid. She hooked it up to the IV pole and connected it to a second tube in his arm. 

“Codeine, a painkiller. It should kick in about half an hour,” she said to him before she left the room. San watched her go without saying anything until Hongjoong appeared. 

He occupied the seat that Lee had vacated, and pulled the chair even closer to San. There was a black facemask on his face, and he had his thick, prescription glasses, too. Obviously, he had not come dressed to impress, which made San’s stomach twist. Hongjoong was a fashion-conscious person, and seeing him make so little effort was unnerving. 

“Where are the others?” San croaked.

Hongjoong was jittery, his hands dancing between his lap and the edges of the blankets on San’s bed. “The others are at the dorm,” Hongjoong said. “Seonghwa came with you yesterday. We had to leave overnight, but we all visited after the schedule finished this morn-.” 

San cut him off, his mouth opening in horror. “The schedule,” he hissed, “I missed it?” 

“No one is angry,” Hongjoong said placatingly. “KQ said you were being treated for a mild cold, and the fans are all more worried than anything else.” His words did nothing to abate the guilt that built up in the back of San’s mind. _He had failed to show up for filming._

Hongjoong took one of San’s hands. “Really, it’s alright. The others would still be here, but Taemyeon insisted that they go home so to rest for tomorrow.” He paused and tapped one of his fingers against San’s palm. “I let them know that you’re awake, and they want to visit.” 

San wondered what Taemyeon, their manager, would make of that. 

As if reading his mind, Hongjoong gave him a guilty smile. “Apparently Jongho has taken to promising full cooperation on the next script reading if they can come.” 

That made San snort. It was quiet, but Hongjoong’s eyes lit up. 

“What happened?” San asked. He avoided Hongjoong’s eyes as he asked, instead staring at their intertwined hands. Hongjoong still had his hand tapping against San’s. Hongjoong hesitated for a moment, and San spoke again, “I mean after the filming. I don’t remember after that…” 

Hongjoong bit his lip and sighed. “It…” He trailed off and shook his head before starting again. “I don’t know… I mean, once we finished the filming, we went back to the dressing room. You must have felt terrible because you, well, you were holding your stomach and not talking to anyone. Jongho went to find Taemyeon, and then you fainted from the pain, I think.” 

“You think?” San said. Hongjoong’s words made him feel strange and discomfort bubbled in his stomach, quite separate from the pain that was yet to disappear under the codeine line. It was weird to be filled in on bits of his own life where his own memory didn’t suffice. 

Hongjoong looked shaken, too. “I don’t know why else it would have been,” he settled on. He removed one of his hands from San’s and began fiddling with his fingers. The other words to his sentence went unspoken. _I don’t want to think about the other reasons, because none of them have happy endings._

San swallowed. “And then?” 

“Taemyeon called an ambulance, and Seonghwa went with you to A&E. Apparently,” Hongjoong cleared his throat and the ligaments in his hands tensed under San’s fingers, “Apparently, you had a seizure on the way here. You put under anaesthetic and, you woke up almost a day later.” 

San nodded. He couldn’t find anything that seemed suitable to say. Nothing felt right. “Do you, uh, know why it happened?” San asked after a long minute of silence. 

Hongjoong shook his head. “I don’t think the doctors have found anything yet. Even if they had, they couldn’t tell us. Your parents have medical power of attorney, so it’s up to you and them who knows.” 

“Do they know?"

“Your parents?” Hongjoong waited for San to nod before answering. “KQ called them, but I don’t think they can come up at the moment. They said they’d phone as soon as you were awake and ready.” 

San leant back into the pillows on his bed. He was exhausted, and the pain was not disappearing. Now he was awake, it was easier to tune the throbbing out, but it remained a stubborn ache that he could not fully ignore. 

“What’s wrong?” Hongjoong asked abruptly. “Do you need a doctor?” 

San did his best to shake his head. It made his brain spin. “I want to sleep.” 

Hongjoong’s face softened, and the tension in his body melted away. “You should, then. One of us will be here when you wake up.” 

Humming in agreement, San did not protest when his eyes slipped shut. Hongjoong’s hands were warm around his own, and even the continuous ache in his body could not stop sleep from pulling him under. 

Hongjoong was right, though. When he woke up again, he recognised the voices of Yeosang and Seonghwa, talking quietly to each other about things that San could not hear from where he lay. The bed had not been lowered, so he was still lying in the half-reclined position he had been before, with absolutely no way of knowing what time it was. 

His eyes flickered open, and he heard one of them move across the floor to his side. His hand touched San’s forehead for a second, and he leant into his touch. It was almost reminiscent of what his parents would do when he was sick. His parents, both betas, rarely came to Seoul and San hadn’t seen them since their last break, almost five months ago, when he had gone back to Namhae. 

“Mum…” San’s throat was dry again, and his voice weak. 

“Sorry, San, it’s just me,” Seonghwa’s voice said gently. He stroked San’s hair out of his face. “How’re you feeling?” 

The pain had sunk back to a groaning throb. Perhaps the pain killers had finally started to work. Either way, he could ignore it if he pushed it to the back of his mind. “Better,” he managed. It wasn’t entirely the truth, but it wasn’t a lie, either. 

Yeosang stood at the end of the bed, looking hesitant, with his hands clutched on the bar at the foot of it. “I’ll, uh, get the doctor,” he said and disappeared out of the room. 

Seonghwa did not say much but just continued to card his fingers through San’s greasy hair as they waited for Yeosang to return. San’s stomach rolled uneasily; what would Lee tell him that he had no desire to know? Her face, when she marched in the room, did not reassure him. 

“Mr Choi,” Lee greeted. She did not take a seat this time but clutched her clipboard to her side. “Are you feeling up to talking? We’ve got the results from your tests back, but we decided that it was better that you slept for a few hours, rather than waking you up straight away.” 

San blinked at her and then nodded. “Okay.’ 

Lee gave him a small smile. “And, do you mind if these people stay? Or would you rather that it’s just us?” 

“I can go,” Yeosang said. He turned on his heel, gait awkward before San stopped him.

“They can both stay.” San found Yeosang’s eyes and grimaced. Yeosang nodded in acknowledgement and returned to his spot at the end of the bed. His hands wrapped themselves around the bedpost again and San could see his knuckles turning white from how tightly he gripped it.

Lee glanced between San, Seonghwa and Yeosang before returning to her clipboard without a comment. “You’re an omega, correct?” She drew a finger down the page in front of her and paused on a box that San could not read but did not have to guess too hard about what it contained.

San and Yeosang made eye contact again as he responded. It was no secret amongst the members of ATEEZ that he was an omega. Seonghwa and Yeosang were too. When they had been training together–even before they had been formed into the group they would debut as–they had been completely honest with each other. 

There was nothing to gain from secrecy. As long as it didn’t get out to the fans, they were all welcome to openness about that part of their lives. In any case, the five of them that experienced cycles were all on suppressants, and before interacting fans, their manager made sure to spray them with a scent blocker. 

Scents themselves were difficult things. While they were individual to each person, it was hard to pin down a dynamic from a scent alone.Not unless they were approaching a cycle, in which case Taemyeon took even more care to chase them around with scent neutraliser sprays. 

A gentle prod brought him back to the present, and he glanced at Seonghwa. He nodded and San quickly agreed without trying to remember the question he had been asked. In the corner of his eye, he noticed Yeosang's lips twitching into a smile. 

San pulled a face at him and then absorbed himself into Lee’s questions. There were routine and easy. _Had he been feeling pain before? Had he ever had a previous experience like this? Was anyone in his family predisposed to medical conditions that he knew of? _He did his best to answer them and fell back to Seonghwa and Yeosang when he ran out of the responses they were looking for. 

After more questions than San cared to count, she encouraged him out of bed. In just the hospital gown, his cheeks flushed red at how exposed he was and made a mental note to thank the others later for turning away. Between walking heel-to-toe with himself, touching his nose and balancing things, he felt like an idiot but Lee seemed placated with each test he successfully got through. The pain, under the influence of the painkiller, had shrunk back to a mild stitch in his side.

Finally settled, Lee tapped her fingers on his clipboard. “Alright, then. So, the test results.” She met San’s eyes, and her face was unreadable. San could feel his heart in his throat as he waited, silent, for her to continue. “We didn’t find anything wrong.” 

There was a beat of silence that Seonghwa broke first. “_What_?” The tone of disbelief sunk into San's own chest like an expanding balloon that was putting more and more pressure on his lungs. “How can there be nothing wrong?"

Lee’s head tilted a little to the side. “Everything that we checked in our scans was clear,” she said, voice perfectly level, “So were the blood tests and toxin scans.” 

“But he…” Yeosang trailed off, throwing a quick look at San. His words shrunk back to a whisper. “It was terrifying. He was literally unable to move with the pain. How can nothing be wrong?” Seonghwa’s grip tightened on his forearm, almost as if she was clutching him as a reassurance that he was still there. 

Lee looked back to San when she spoke again. “For that reason, we want to perform some other tests. A CAT scan, possibly an MRI, too.” San gulped; his only familiarity with the words was through books and medical dramas. “But, those tests often take about a week to schedule, so in the meantime, we’re suggesting that you are released to go home and rest.” 

The room was still. Lee had quite clearly finished her spiel, and everyone else was stunned into silence. 

“Seriously?” San asked, cautious. 

Lee nodded. “Your pain appears to have decreased, and it’s been over thirty-six hours since you fainted, and you appear to be suffering from no adverse effects from that. We’re comfortable with prescribing some mild analgesics that should be able to manage any other pain you’re currently experiencing, and schedule some more exams as soon as possible.” 

San looked around, waiting for someone to joke out and say it was a joke. Somehow, he had expected something much more severe. Or, perhaps a hospital sentence that would last days, if not weeks. The prospect of returning to the dorms was amazing, but it was difficult to process when he was so caught up in his disbelief. 

Seonghwa squeezed his wrist, and Yeosang appeared to be battling with taking out a mobile from his pocket. 

“Are you comfortable with that?” Lee asked. 

San glanced between the other two in the room, and then slowly nodded. 

Lee shuffled through a few documents in her clipboard and withdrew a stapled sheet of paper that she handed to San along with a pen. “These are your release papers. If you could fill them out, then I’ll come back with the clothes you were admitted in and a prescription that you can fill at the chemist on the way out.” 

San accepted the objects without a question and stared as she left the room. There was a long moment of silence before Yeosang laughed nervously.

“I’ll call the manager,” he said, ducking out of the room with his fingers twitching by his side. Obviously, he was every bit as confused as San was. 

Seonghwa helped San through the paperwork with quiet words and identification codes that San could not remember. The throbbing in his stomach was bearable; easy enough to tune out. He continued to ignore it as he handed the paperwork in, as he changed into the clothes he had worn yesterday while the doctors met with Taemyeon, and as he clambered into the company car alongside Yeosang and Seonghwa. 

By the time they reached the dorm, San was ready to sleep again. His eyes threatened to close as he stumbled up the stairs with a little plastic bag of painkillers clutched in a hand. Yeosang stood closely by his side the entire way, as though scared that San would fall flat on his face or buckle over in unbearable agony again. San did his best to not let it bother him; Yeosang was just trying to be kind.

He needn’t have worried, though. As soon as he stepped through the front door, San was bombarded with the other five members of their group. 

Wooyoung dragged him into a warm hug, chirping as he did so. “You’re back! Are you alright now?” San melted into the touch, letting his head rest on Wooyoung's shoulder. The familiar smell of his shampoo lingered on his old jumper.

Taemyeon ushered Seonghwa into the apartment, and then shut the door behind all of them. “He’s not participating in schedules until he has been cleared in all his scans.” 

The warmth of the embrace disappeared as Wooyoung stepped back. The loss made Sans’ stomach feel empty and the pounding in his belly worse. “What scans?” Wooyoung asked, face falling. “San?” 

Taemyeon spoke before San could. “Everything so far has been clear so far, but the doctors want to do a few more checks over the next week to check that there aren't any underlying causes that weren’t obvious at first.” 

Hongjoong broke the silence first with a tight smile on his face. “I’m sure it’s all going to be fine.” No one spoke the obvious words. Was_ everything really fine if you passed out from the pain of some unknown thing?_ They were content to leave that question alone, though, and Yunho escorted them all towards the kitchen where a pot of jjigae had nearly finished cooking. 

San’s stomach shrivelled in on itself at the smell. “I’m going to shower,” he announced and, before anyone should say otherwise, he had turned on his heel. Yunho watched him go, biting his lip. 

He showered quickly, removing the grease from his hair and the smell of hospital from his skin. By the time he returned, the ache in his stomach had once again become impossible to ignore. It was nothing as terrible as it had been, but neither was it pleasant. A hand drifted there to rest as he stood in the kitchen, quiet, while the others talked loudly as they dished stew into bowls. 

No one pushed him to speak. They understood the apathy that always seemed to follow a stint in hospital and being forced out of schedules. San was not the first to be in that position, and he highly doubted that he would be the last. His lack of bounce was strange around the table, though, and left stilted conversation in its wake. 

Hongjoong tapped his fingers on the tabletop when he noticed San push away his barely-touched bowl. “You need to eat,” he said. “You’ll feel worse tomorrow morning if you don’t.”

Yeosang glanced in San’s direction, too. “Even if you just eat like half?” He set his chopsticks down across the top of his plate. “Just so you’re not running on empty? The doctor said you should take your medication with food, anyway.” 

There was an awkward silence around the table as everyone’s eyes flickered between San and each other. San sighed as he pulled the bowl back towards himself. “I’m fine,” he said, answering the unasked question as he picked up a piece of meat with his chopsticks. He regarded it but did not move it towards his mouth. “I’m just not very hungry.” 

His stomach ached in confirmation, but his resolve crumbled under the concerned looks Wooyoung and Mingi were giving him. San pushed the piece of beef into his mouth and chewed. It had the texture of rubber, but the others seemed to exhale as he continued to force down the mouthful. 

The food sat in his stomach like a rock, and he gave up halfway through the bowl. Not even Hongjoong asked him to eat any more though as San cleared his plate and went to retrieve his painkillers from where he had dropped them. 

The little bottle was sitting on a countertop in the bathroom, right next to where the suppressant medications were kept. San’s eyes scanned over them as he tipped two pills onto the palm of his hand. _Had he taken his weekly suppressant yet?_ It was scheduled for today; he remembered that from the calendar when he had looked yesterday, and they certainly hadn’t administered it to him at the hospital.

Without thinking too much about it, he popped another tablet into his hand and carried all three of them back into the kitchen. Pulling a glass from the cupboard and filling it with water, San leant against the bench to swallow his medications. 

Seonghwa, standing at the sink to rinse the last of the dishes, barely blinked when San put his cup into the dishwasher. ”Feeling any better?” he asked, attention focused on the bowl he held in his hands. 

“A bit,” San said slowly. He paused by the counter and did not allow his hand to massage the ache in his belly. It was too quick for the pain killers to kick in, and he did not want to worry Seonghwa further. They had all been so tense at the table; he could not bear to make them feel worse on his behalf. “It’s not as bad as yesterday.” 

Seonghwa nodded and placed another dish in the dishwasher. He seemed to hesitate before speaking again. “Do you have any idea why it happened? I know the doctors said…” Trailing off, Seonghwa let his hands fall lax on the plate he was holding. 

San swallowed and considered the question. Honestly, he didn’t have a clue. There was no way he could rationalise that agonising pain. In the few unsuppressed heats he had experienced when he was a teenager, he always had horrific cramping in the lead-up, right through it and for days afterwards. They left him, often immobilised, in bed for a week.

Scientifically, it was his body adjusting. Medically, it was the reason he was on high-grade suppressants by the time he was sixteen. And even then, he often suffered through severe cramping when his cycle was being actively suppressed. The fictionalised, sexy version of heats that existed in popular media had never been further than the truth for San. But, even of those heats, he didn’t think he had ever felt as terrible as yesterday. 

In San’s mind, there was no rational explanation, and he shook his head. That only made him feel worse when he thought about the tests he would have to sit through over the next week. _What would be found there?_

Seonghwa put the last plate into the dishwasher and pulled the plug out of the sink. The water snaked itself into a whirlpool as it drained, gurgling into the silence between San and Seonghwa. 

“What’re you going to do in the meantime?” 

A wry smile worked itself onto San’s face. “Hope that nothing too bad comes up in the tests.” 

Seonghwa’s lips tightened. He was as thrown off by San’s lack of energy as everyone else, it seemed. “It’ll be okay,” he finally settled on after a long second. “Whatever they find… Or don’t find… We’ll work through it, right?” 

“Right,” San repeated. The smile dropped from his face. “I think I might go to bed…” 

Nodding, Seonghwa followed San out of the kitchen. “We’ll try not to wake you tomorrow morning. There's an early schedule, though.” 

San forced himself to give Seonghwa a quick, flashy grin. “Thank you,” he crooned, drawing out the vowels into dramatic coos that he was not in the mood for. It was worth it to see the tension in Seonghwa’s shoulders wear away a little more as he dropped onto the couch next to Wooyoung. 

Mingi was nowhere to be seen in their shared bedroom. _It was barely getting late, so it was understandable,_ San decided as he clambered into a loose t-shirt and sweatpants, and swaddled himself in the blankets on his bed. 

In his cocoon, he pressed his hands back to his belly. His fingers were cool, pulling his attention away from the lingering pain for only a second. It was not going away, though, and the painkillers didn’t feel like they were working. Tracing slow patterns onto the skin, he tried to distract himself from the pain and coax himself to sleep. The process seemed redundant, though. He was no closer to sleep an hour later, or the hour after that.

He could hear the television in the main room, and the gentle hum of voices. At some point, Mingi came into the room and put himself to bed as quietly as possible. Time dragged and San soon lost track of how far into the night they were as he hugged himself. The ache was not disappearing. If anything, it was getting worse again.

The longer he lay there, the more San began to realise that this ran deeper than a simple illness or virus. There was something, potentially, very wrong with him, and he had no idea what. And, that thought made his head ache almost as much as his stomach. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the plot thickens~~ What's wrong with San?? 
> 
> For reference, this is going to be focused on San and the ATEEZ members, not hospitals and long conversations with medical personnel. This chapter was an outlier in that I needed to establish some things while he was there, and secondly, there is no rational way that he would not have ended up in hospital considering the end of the last chapter. So, yes-if you were concerned about this becoming more focused on doctors and nurses than the other ATEEZ members, fear not! 
> 
> Also, how would people feel about chapters staying roughly this length? Too long? Too short? About right? 
> 
> Finally, does anyone know what ATEEZ's manager's name is? I couldn't find it, so I just decided that he would be Taemyeon haha

**Author's Note:**

> A/B/O dynamics of ATEEZ  
San - Omega  
Seonghwa - Omega  
Yeosang - Omega  
Wooyoung - Beta  
Hongjoong - Beta  
Yunho - Beta  
Mingi - Alpha  
Jongho - Alpha


End file.
